


Round and Round

by stop_the_fading



Category: Jonas Brothers, Supernatural
Genre: Drama, Humor, M/M, annoying commercials, slightly crack-y, slightly pre-slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-08 07:50:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stop_the_fading/pseuds/stop_the_fading
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I could be back in my apartment sipping Italian soda and watching Casablanca in silk boxers - real silk boxers, mind you. Instead, I am halfway into a cursed laboratory that may or may not house the sadistic spirit of a dead mad scientist via an air duct that smells like rotting corpses with a surly psycho who spends his life driving around the country throwing himself at demons, and who clearly thinks he’s hotter than he really is."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Round and Round

**Author's Note:**

> For my sister, who asked for a short, fun JoBros fic. Instead, she got this mess-of-weird monster. Step lightly - there will be crack.

  
    “What do you mean, ‘the Tilt-a-Whirl is broken’?”  
  
    Nick placed a comforting hand on Joe’s shoulder, exchanging a sympathetic look with Kevin. They’d all been looking forward to this break, but once the promise of a Tilt-a-Whirl had been made, Joe had been over the moon. Granted, none of the trio were thrilled with this turn of events (who didn’t enjoy the Tilt-a-Whirl?), but for Nick, at least, it was more of a mix of sympathy for Joe and trepidation over the likely impending sulk than any real disappointment. He suspected that Kevin was also terribly let down, but, like Nick, he wasn’t so attached to this particular fairground ride.  
  
    Joe, though…  
  
    “It can’t be _broken_ ,” Joe was explaining adamantly, arms flung wide, sunglasses slipping down his nose as he peered suspiciously at the nonplussed ride jockey as though he believed the man to be lying.  
  
    To his credit, the carnie didn’t even flinch a bit. “Then I guess the poor sap crawling around inside it is gonna have to find something else to do with his afternoon,” the man drawled deeply.  
  
    “But…but…it can’t be _broken_. I need to ride it at least once!”  
  
    “I’ll be sure to let the ride know you’re disappointed in it, but you can’t really blame it for feeling under the weather.” As if to punctuate the carnie’s sarcasm, the ride let out an ominous groan and belched sparks and smoke.  
  
    Nick grabbed Joe by the elbow and yanked him back a good foot, just in case. “We’ll just…check back later,” he said with a disarming half-smile.  
  
    The carnie shrugged. “Whatever, man.”  
  
    As Kevin took Joe by the other arm and helped Nick drag him away, the middle brother craned his neck and pouted mightily back at the rude ride jockey, going so far as to stick out his tongue.  
  
    The carnie smirked back, crossing his arms defiantly, a satisfied gleam in his…lovely eyes.  
  
    Joe shook himself. He’d promised himself there would be none of that today. No fear or self-loathing or checking out hot carnival workers during his day out with his bros. It had been too long since they’d gotten to hang out together, just the three of them, without parents or roadies or fans or what-have-you looming around. It was supposed to be a day for them, not a day for Joe’s whack-a-doo hormones to out him to the two people he was most afraid of losing.  
  
    As if they were on the same wavelength (and God, did Joe hope they weren’t really), Kevin sighed. “Can you not sulk over the Tilt-a-Whirl today? I haven’t gotten to hang with just the two of you in months. I’d like today to go smoothly, okay?”  
  
    “I just don’t get how it can be _broken_ ,” Joe whinged.  
  
    Nick rolled his eyes. “Things break. It happens.”  
  
    “Not to _me_ ,” Joe muttered, cringing when he realized how that sounded. “Uh…that wasn’t meant to sound so…uh…”  
  
    “Douche-y?” Kevin supplied, spotting a funnel cake stall and manhandling Joe towards it with a surge of hope. “Hey, Joe, how about some funnel cake? Extra powdered sugar? I know how much you like extra powdered sugar.”  
  
    Joe’s face lit up. “Ooooh, yeah! I wonder how much it…is…” His shoulder’s slumped, and his lower lip stuck out.  
  
    “’Fryer broken’?” Nick blinked at the crude sign in the stall window. “Uh…”  
  
    “Am I cursed today?”  
  
    Nick and Kevin sighed in tandem, a look of commiseration passing between them as Joe crossed his arms and sulked.  
  
    “There’s another stall at the other end of the fairground,” a helpful voice piped up behind them.  
  
    Joe whirled around, eyes bright, and grabbed the ridiculously tall man by his jumpsuit sleeve. “Are you serious? Tell me you’re serious. Seriously? There’s seriously another stall? With a working fryer? For real?”  
  
    “Seriously real,” the man said with an awkward grin as he tugged his arm out of Joe’s grip and pointed down the midway. “Just make it past the sword jugglers and you’ll see it next to the contortionist’s stage.”  
  
    “Thank you so, so much, uh…” Joe peered at the cleanup guy’s badge. “Clem?”  
  
    “Uh, no,” the guy replied with a short laugh. “I had to borrow the jumpsuit - I’m new on the job. I’m Sam.” He patted Joe on the shoulder. “Better hurry, before the other fryer breaks.”  
  
    “Shht!” Nick made slicing motions with his hands as Kevin lunged forward and grabbed a horror-stricken Joe by the back of his shirt and hauled him away. “Don’t you dare even suggest it,” Nick hissed, ignoring Sam’s bemused expression.  
  
:::  
  
    Sam shrugged and went about his business as the boys wandered off, stabbing at wrappers and discarded tickets as he made his way back towards the Tilt-a-Whirl and Dean. He wasn’t there to engage with slightly-odd young men. Well, not ones who were slightly-odd in such a normal way, anyway.  
  
    Two deaths linked to this carnival in the last two weeks - one perpetrated by a fire-breather, one by a knife thrower (and boy, did that bring back unpleasant memories), and both of the alleged murderers swore up and down that they’d been possessed. Sam wasn’t so sure - no signs of sulfur, no demonic signs or omens, nothing to suggest anything hell-based at all. That didn’t mean it wasn’t their kind of strange, though. The bits of brain missing from each corpse, with no sign that the skull was damaged in any way, kind of made it their kind of strange.  
  
    Sam nodded jerkily to a passing clown, edging up against the side of the House of Mirrors as it passed. Some fears, no matter how bravely you faced them, just wouldn’t let go. He watched the thing as it approached a child with a balloon, eyes narrowing.  
  
    He was almost hoping a clown was the cause - he never really got the closure of actually killing the last ones.  
  
    With a sigh and a shake of his head, he returned to his duties.  
  
:::  
  
    “What do you mean, ‘out of powdered sugar’?! You can’t be out of powdered sugar - you sell funnel cake!”  
  
    Kevin pinched the bridge of his nose wearily. He was a fairly easy-going guy, but he was starting to seriously contemplate homicide as Joe lost whatever minimal cool he’d ever had.  
  
    He felt a pat on his shoulder and looked over at Nick, who was rolling his eyes. “We could always take him on the Ferris wheel and push him off when we get to the top. No one here would turn us in at this point.”  
  
    Snorting, Kevin favored his other younger brother with a small grin. “Or we could hold his head under at the dunk tank.”  
  
    “Offer him up as the magician’s lovely assistant and pay the guy to actually saw him in half?”  
  
    “Do you two think I can’t hear you?” Joe tapped his foot peevishly. “I’m standing right here. I can hear every word.”  
  
    “We know,” his brothers droned in unison, prompting the middle brother to pout.  
  
    “Hey, how about a funhouse?” Nick jerked his chin towards a small building just past the funnel cake booth. “Maybe they’ll have the powdered sugar by the time we come out.”  
  
    Joe capitulated with an aggrieved sigh, equal parts wistful and annoyed, designed perfectly to inform his brothers that he was not happy with the situation, nor mollified entirely. They ignored it, herding him towards the entrance.  
  
    “Watch this be closed, too,” he grumbled.  
  
    When they made their way through the door unhindered, he brightened somewhat, going so far as to bounce a little on the balls of his feet. He adored funhouses, Nick knew, and they could only hope it would succeed in taking his mind off of the funnel cake disaster long enough for someone to round up some sugar.  
  
    They were about halfway through, laughing at the cheesy “scares” and trying to get the jump on each other, when a clown head on a spring popped up in front of Joe’s nose.  
  
    “AUGH! CLOWN!” Stumbling backwards, Joe tripped into an alcove, landing hard on his butt, his hand slipping into something wet and sticky and disconcertingly warm.  
  
    “Joe? You okay?” The laughter in his brothers’ eyes faded as their gazes slipped past him, and Joe swallowed hard.  
  
    Slowly, he lifted his hand up to his face, eyes widening at the gooey red mess covering his palm. Heart thumping loudly, he rubbed his fingers together, the slickness of the fluid making his stomach turn. He turned slowly, shaking, meeting the wide, terrified, incredibly dead eyes of the person in whose blood he’d fallen.  
  
    “Oh…oh, my….”  
  
    [BLACK SCREEN APPEARS, SUDDENLY EMBLAZONED WITH THE SUPERNATURAL LOGO ROILING WITH LIGHTNING. UNDERNEATH IS THE SUBTITLE: The 3-D Experience. FADE TO BLACK.]  
  
    “No, Nick, I don’t want a soft pretzel, I want a bathtub full of hand sanitizer and a therapist.”  
  
    Dean paused at the voice - it was a familiar sort of voice, and not in a pleasant way.  
  
    “Aw, man,” he murmured, reaching out to grab Sam’s arm and stop him from edging forward towards the funhouse.  
  
    The taller man blinked down at his brother, eyebrows soaring. “Something wrong?”  
  
    “It’s that annoying fucking kid again. Wouldn’t stop whining about the stupid Tilt-a-Whirl.”  
  
    “Well, it is crazy good fun,” Sam deadpanned with a mocking eye roll.  
  
    “Shut up. Hey,” he said gruffly when they got into earshot of the trio, “what happened?”  
  
    The boys looked up at him with equally dark, eerily similar eyes in one synchronized motion, and Dean actually shifted his weight a bit in preparation to flee. That was just not normal.  
  
    “What _happened_ , Princess Freckles,” the little snot from earlier said, eyes taking on a righteous sort of fire as he stood up, “is that I just stuck my hand in the blood of a very dead person. And I mean _very_ dead.”  
  
    “So not just a little dead, then,” Dean snarked back, flashing the kid the most shit-eating grin he could muster.  
  
    He was rewarded with a narrowing of eyes, and the kid grabbed him by the front of his work shirt with a hand that still had dried blood flaking off of it. “I fell in someone’s blood, you jerk! I got their blood on my _hand_! It squished! And it was warm! And _he stared_ at me!”  
  
    “The…the detective?” Sam asked, torn between laughing at Dean’s discomfort as congealed blood was smeared across his shirt and sympathetic towards the traumatized guy’s plight.  
  
    “The body,” he hissed, eyes widening in remembrance, and Sam suddenly understood.  
  
    The kid had obviously never seen a dead person before, except perhaps at a funeral. And this wasn’t just walking in on a crime scene - the guy had tripped over the corpse and landed in the blood. No wonder he was traumatized.  
  
    “Hey, come on,” he said in his talking-to-mentally-scarred-witnesses voice, reaching out to pat the kid on the shoulder as he released Dean. “It’s just a body, okay? It can’t hurt you.”  
  
    “It can if it had diseases,” the kid muttered. Then, paling, he whimpered. “Oh, God, he probably had _diseases_. Oh, God, I’m gonna die horribly, aren’t I?”  
  
    “No, Joe,” the smallest of the three said patiently, bustling over and determinedly wrapping his brother in a shock blanket until he looked like a panicked burrito. “They’re gonna swab and take scrapings from under your nails, and then you can scrub it off and sanitize to your heart’s content. You’ll be fine.”  
  
    “But-” Whatever protest he had was cut off as the tallest of them approached and rapidly shoved a chunk of sugary-sweet funnel cake into Joe’s mouth.  
  
    The cake-fetching brother smiled at the Winchesters apologetically. “Sorry, he can be a little dramatic sometimes.”  
  
    “Mph hmmm pheem mmbbluh rhmphemhug,” Joe cut in, turning his slightly-hysterical glare on his brother.  
  
    “Of course we can, Joe,” the younger brother replied comfortingly, patting Joe on the shoulder. “Of course.”  
  
    “Listen, I know you probably don’t want to talk about it, but…what did you see?”  
  
    The three of them looked at Sam, moving in sync again, and Sam swallowed. Joe swallowed, too, licking crusty sugar from his lips, and sighed. “Seriously, dude? What, are you reporters or something?”  
  
    “Re-…uh…” Shaking his head, Sam huffed a laugh. “No, no, we just work here. We’re, uh…we’re just new, ya know? No one really tells us anything yet.”  
  
    The suspicious laser-gaze of the trio didn’t waver, and Sam felt distinctly uncomfortable. Dean, grinning as disarmingly as possible, dragged Sam back a bit and drew their attention back to him. “Okay, yeah, you got us. We’re, uh…we’re undercover reporters. Investigative, you know? Just checking out the carnie scene, getting the dirt on how they really live. Just, you know….don’t say anything, huh? We need to…um…observe them in their natural habitat. Like, uh…like bees.”  
  
    “Bees,” the youngest of the three deadpanned.  
  
    Sam flashed them his sweetest smile. “Yeah. Bees.”  
  
    “And you need to know about the body because it…pertains to your study?”  
  
    “Well, if I was studying actual bees and came across the corpse of a bee in the hive, I’d want to observe the reactions of those around it…?”  
  
    The youngest, whose laser-eyes were, by far, the most laser-y, blinked at Sam, not a muscle on his face twitching.  
  
    “Uh…okay, then. So…so, uh, how….what did the scene look like?”  
  
:::  
  
    “I’m telling you, Dean, those kids were just strange.”  
  
    “Not really kids,” Dean muttered, “even if the one of them acted like it. What’s with young people these days?”  
  
    “Seriously?” Sam shook his head at Dean over the roof of the Impala. “You’re gonna try to comment on someone else’s maturity?”  
  
    “Shut up.” They slid inside, but Dean didn’t start the car, instead looking back at the lights of the ambulance flashing in his rearview mirror. He could spy the middle brother, Joe, still bundled up, his brothers stationed at either side like bodyguards. They were careful about who they talked to, he noticed, and what they said - even Joe, who had a hell of a mouth on him, had clammed up the second they suspected something amiss. “You know, they were weird before, but when they thought we were reporters…”  
  
    “Yeah, I got that, too,” Sam murmured, frowning as he craned his neck to look back at the scene. “There’s something they definitely don’t want in the papers, but, I mean, who knows what it could be?”  
  
    “I mean, they had no problem talking to cops and paramedics,” the older Winchester muttered, reaching around to start the car, “so I doubt it has to do with the body, but something weird’s definitely going on here. I mean, I gave them my disarming grin. They should have been disarmed. Everyone‘s always disarmed by my disarming grin. There shouldn‘t have been an arm in a ten-mile radius, and they just-”  
  
    “Dean, look.” Thumping him on the shoulder, Sam gestured back towards the official cars, ignoring Dean‘s petulant ranting as best he could.  
  
    A crowd had formed, a ring of flashbulbs and waving hands, around the trio. The youngest had stepped forward and was shaking his head with a stern look, while the oldest was leading Joe further into the ambulance, careful to situate himself between the crowd and his brother. The youngest shook his head again, walking towards the ambulance and climbing inside, and the police began to try to disperse the flock.  
  
    “Reporters,” Dean murmured. “Man, they must have thought we were just the sign of the oncoming storm, huh?”  
  
    “Who the hell are those kids?” Sliding back into the seat as Dean started to pull away, Sam tapped his fingers against his knees. “They look really familiar.”  
  
    “Maybe they’re some celeb’s kids?”  
  
:::  
  
    “They’re celebs,” Sam announced when Dean had shut their motel room door, bags of provisions (and probably pie) dangling from his fingers.  
  
    “Huh?”  
  
    “Those guys at the carnival. They’re pop stars - Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas, collectively known as the Jonas Brothers.” Sam spun his laptop around so Dean could see the muted video of the three on stage, teenage girls nearly in seizure in the audience. “People call them ‘the new Beatles’.”  
  
    “Oh, now, that’s just wrong,” Dean grumbled, looking about as offended as Sam had ever seen him.  
  
    “Yeah, well, whatever you say about them, they’ve been incredibly successful so far - topping charts, international touring, television shows, a couple of movies. Joe and Nick - that’s the youngest of the three of them - have been in musicals. They have slews of terrifyingly devoted fans. They might not have the musical influence of The Beatles, but they’ve got the mania that went along with it. In spades.”  
  
    “Great.” Flopping back onto his bed, Dean scrubbed his hands over his face. “That’s stellar. That means there’ll be reporters all over the carnival tomorrow.”  
  
    “Maybe. In any case, I think it’s safe to say that all that weirdness earlier didn’t have anything to do with the job.” Turning his computer back around, he watched the trio leap about a bit longer before returning to his previous search for answers. “We probably won’t run in to them again.”  
  
:::  
  
    “Hi, I don’t know if you remember us-”  
  
    “The reporters,” Kevin said softly when he spied Joe opening his mouth. He flashed Sam and Dean a polite smile. “We remember.”  
  
    It was a nice day out, and the hunters had managed to corner the brothers at a cute little frozen yoghurt shop. Sam felt a bit bad about bothering them, actually - clearly, they valued their privacy, and they probably didn’t get much of it. They needed information, though, and they had no one else to get it from.  
  
    Joe pouted a bit around his spoonful, pinning Dean with a glower. Dean manfully ignored it in spite of the sudden urge to whack him upside the head, and sat down between the other two brothers.  
  
    “Hey, we’re really sorry if we made you uncomfortable yesterday,” Sam began in his I’m-so-sweet-and-harmless-you’ll-love-me-whether-you-like-it-or-not voice, taking a seat next to Joe. Dean had his own variation on the voice, but in his experience, it worked much better on single women than anyone else. “We didn’t actually know who you were, or we wouldn’t have been so pushy.”  
  
    This had Joe inhaling his yoghurt, and as Kevin thumped him firmly on the back, Nick cocked his head at them, incredulous.  
  
    “This is going to sound kind of horrible,” he said, “but…you didn’t know who we were?”  
  
    “Nope.” Smiling brightly, Dean grabbed a spare spoon out of the cup on the table and started to dig in to Joe’s treat. There was a brief fencing match between the two until Joe picked up his cup and scooted around the table until he was out of Dean’s reach. The green-eyed hunter smirked. “We’re not so up-to-date on the tweeny pop scene. We’re more interested in the hard issues.”  
  
    Joe rolled his eyes. “Like carnivals.”  
  
    “Hey, man, it’s a rough life,” Dean pointed out. “And it’s not one people know a lot about. Traveling, always anonymous, crap pay, crummy living conditions, no benefits, no appreciation…” He trailed off, clearing his throat, and Sam rolled his eyes.  
  
    “We just wanted to apologize for being jerks-”  
  
    “No, Samantha here wanted to apologize for being a jerk,” his brother cut in. “I’m too adorable to be a jerk.”  
  
    Huffing a light laugh, Sam kicked Dean hard under the table.  
  
    Exchanging glances, the three brothers seemed to engage in conversation with their eyes for a moment. Sam wondered if he and Dean looked that creepy when they spoke similarly. Finally, Nick looked back at the Winchesters.  
  
    “Apology accepted. We’d like to eat in peace, though, if you don’t mind.”  
  
    “No, no, yeah, that’s fine.” Standing up, Sam grabbed his brother by the collar of his jacket and yanked him up. “We’ll get out of your hair.”  
  
    “Your cliché tweeny pop star hair.”  
  
    This time, Sam kicked Dean in the open, but it didn’t stop Joe from pinning the older hunter with a withering look.  
  
    “You can be as condescending as you like, Princess Freckles, but at the end of the day, I’m the one with the custom-made, rhinestone-studded kicks, and you’re stuck tearing tickets to write an article I‘m willing to bet no one will read. And maybe that sounds shallow and horrible of me, but I earned those sparkly shoes doing something I actually enjoy, and I’m good at it. So you go ahead and make fun of my hair, if it makes you feel better, Your Highness. Even if it’s a bit hypocritical, since yours looks like you modeled it after R-Pattz’s ‘do in those Count Von Twinkle movies.” Ending his rant with a charming, toothy smile, Joe went back to his yoghurt.  
      
    Which had…vanished?  
  
    Dean quirked his eyebrows teasingly, hefting the cup of frozen goodness. “Hey, thanks for being such good sports.”  
  
    “Y-…y-…h-…”  
  
    As the middle Jonas Brother hyperventilated with fury behind him, Dean spooned a bit of the treat into his mouth. “Mmm. Tastes like sweet victory.”  
  
    Sam shook his head. “You really are a jerk, Dean. And he had a point - you were being condescending. We really needed that information to confirm our theory.”  
  
    Rolling his eyes, Dean turned around, wandered back to them, and plopped the cup back onto the table. “Okay, sweetheart, how about this? I’ll turn over your fro-yo if you answer a question.”  
  
    “Depends on the question,” Nick cut in immediately, eyes narrowing at Sam, who was staring at Dean and mouthing ‘sweetheart?’ with a disbelieving look.  
  
    Dean nodded. “We’re doing some maintenance on the funhouse, trying to make sure the death wasn’t, uh…accidental. We’ve been asking around, and people have been complaining about shorts in the electrical system, the ventilation being a bit wonky, strange smells. Did any of you experience anything like that? Freezing cold spots, flickering lights, smells, anything?”  
  
    “Well…the lights were flickering,” Kevin said slowly, looking a bit bewildered. “But…it was a strobe light, and it’s kind of supposed to do that.”  
  
    “It was kind of stuffy in there, actually. Maybe the air conditioner had shorted out or something, but it didn’t seem too bad, and it definitely wasn’t cold,” Nick added.  
  
    “There was a smell, though,” Joe put in, eyes fixed on his yoghurt. Dean inched it away, gaze focusing on the middle brother, who then proceeded to glare up at him fiercely. “Kind of an overpowering scent of blood and death, especially right around the dead body lying in a pool of its own blood.”  
  
    “Okay. Anything else? Anything out of the ordinary?”  
  
    “It was a funhouse,” Joe persisted with an incredulous shake of his head. “What counts as ‘out of the ordinary’ in a funhouse?”  
  
    “There was a different smell,” Nick offered. “Kind of like…like electricity. But, I mean…even if there was a short or something, that wouldn’t account for the…uh…blood.”  
  
    “No, but we’ll look in to it, anyway,” Sam assured them with a grateful smile. “Don‘t need anyone getting electrocuted. Three deaths are three too many, you know?”  
  
    Joe paused in the middle of snatching back his yoghurt. “I’m sorry, three? Did you say there were three deaths?”  
  
    Pouting at Joe and mourning the loss of the yoghurt, Dean shrugged. “What, you don’t read the papers?”  
  
    “We’ll…just get that electrical short checked out,” Sam said nervously, grabbing Dean once more and dragging him away.  
  
:::  
  
    “So, what are you thinking?” Digging around in his bag for clean jeans, Sam peered over his shoulder at his brother, who was splayed out across his bed, arm draped dramatically over his eyes. “Spirit possession?”  
  
    “Makes sense. I mean, there was the ectoplasm at the scene, plus the ozone smell that Nick guy mentioned - maybe the perps were right, maybe they were possessed.”  
  
    “Just not by a demon.” Shaking his head, the taller Winchester tugged on the fresh jeans. “Okay, so, where are we on the spirit front?”  
  
    “No suspicious deaths tied to the carnival. No one who works there has heard of anything like this happening before, nothing in the records. No buildings have ever stood on that lot, no graveyards or burial grounds there. As far as I can find, no one has died or been buried within a thirty mile radius.”  
  
    “So, nothing, then.”  
  
    “Nada.”  
  
    “Okay, then. I’m gonna hit the library, you take another crack at the carnival, and we’ll meet back here?”  
  
:::  
  
    The librarian set down another stack of books at Sam’s elbow, smiling at him prettily. “What’s got you so interested in local news?”  
  
    “Ah, just a bit of a crime buff. The creepier the case, the better.” Smiling back, Sam reached for the stack, but the librarian swept it away, picking through the pile with sudden fervor.  
  
    “Then you have to read about the Kirtland incident,” she breathed with a grin. “It’s kind of the biggest, creepiest local legend ever, and it’s absolutely true.” Tugging out a book, she turned through the newspaper headlines until she was nearly at the middle of the book. “Here.”  
  
    “’Local Therapist Victim Of Mob’?”  
  
    “Yep.” Scooting out the chair next to him, the girl sat down, handing the book over. “What happened was, these people started disappearing around town. Dr. Kirtland was kind of the town loony, and people suspected him, because all of the missing people had gone to him for some issue or other. So when the cops went around to his place, they found the dead bodies buried in the backyard. Everyone was saying he did experiments on them in some underground mad science lab.”  
  
    “It says here the jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity?”  
  
    “Yeah, and when he was being taken out of the courthouse, the families of the victims rioted, and he escaped, and they chased him halfway across town, and when they caught up with him…”  
  
    “They beat him to death,” Sam finished, tracing the words with a frown. “Hey, where is this?”  
  
    She peered at the picture of the location of Kirtland’s death. “That’s Landry Park. It’s just a field, really, and nobody goes there.”  
  
    “Except that’s where they’ve set up the carnival, isn’t it?”  
  
    “Hey, yeah. It was the only clear space big enough, I guess.”  
  
    He read a bit further until he found what he needed. “Right.” Sam flipped the book shut and thanked her, digging out his cell phone, fingers jabbing insistently at the keypad.  
  
    “You know they sell popcorn on the cob here,” Dean said when he picked up, sounds of crunching emanating from the little speaker. “It’s freakin’ awesome, dude.”  
  
    “Dean, I know who’s possessing these people. Meet me at Wytham Cemetery. We’ve got a body to dig up.”  
  
    [CUT TO BLACK]  
  
:::  
  
    Coming soon to the CW…  
  
    The scene is shadowy, irritatingly so, because it’s nearly impossible to see anything at all. It seems to be some kind of darkened apartment, and a young woman is creeping down the hallway in a ludicrously skimpy outfit, even though I don’t know many chicks who wear thongs to bed. An oversized t-shirt or sweats might have been more appropriate.  
  
    As she creeps along, someone comes up behind her and starts to strangle her.  
  
    We cut to slightly-less-dark-but-still-annoyingly-dark daytime. There’s a chalk outline being drawn, police lights flashing through the windows, and two figures walk in.  
  
    “Well, Gabe, what do you think?” Kneeling by the body, Crowley floofs his trench coat back and out of the way with a needless flourish, lifting the hair out of the victim’s face with a pen, even though no self-respecting investigator of any kind would disturb a crime scene, especially in such a cliché manner.  
  
    The second figure tilts his head with a smirk. “I’d say something got her…all choked up,” he replies as he slips on his sunglasses, even though it’s still ridiculously dark in spite of it being one in the afternoon.  
  
    YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!  
  
    Things explode! Crowley somersaults through a sugar-glass window! Gabriel seduces a suspect! More things explode!  
  
    They’re two renegade detectives in pursuit of the truth! An all-new series from the creators of Supernatural!  
  
    CSI: Perdition! Fridays at nine, only on the CW!  
  
:::  
  
    Kevin Jonas is, oddly, dressed in a nice suit and is throwing things around randomly as a family cowers behind their couch.  
  
    “I’m a poltergeist. When I was alive I was murdered horribly in the house you unwittingly purchased two weeks ago.”  
  
    Kevin makes the lights flicker by wiggling his fingers, then picks up a standing lamp and hurls it through the window.  
  
    “Now I’m really pissed off and about to kill your entire family.”  
  
    He flings the couch away with his mind.  
  
    “Sorry, Lewis family. You should have gotten Allchester homeowner‘s insurance, and been better protected against the kinds of things most insurance companies don’t cover. Like gruesome, untimely death at the hands of a vengeful spirit.”  
  
    Blood spatters everywhere as the Allchester logo is imposed in the foreground.  
  
    Allchester. You’re in experienced hunter hands.  
  
:::  
  
    A random hunter is strolling jauntily down the sidewalk when a busty blonde female cop pulls up and tries to arrest him. He smiles, but it’s just not pearly-white enough to do the trick.  
  
    Dean jumps up from behind the bushes, brandishing a tube of toothpaste.  
  
    “No, man, if you wanna disarm her, you’ve gotta use Dis-Arm & Hammer whitening toothpaste.”  
  
    He grin at the cop, and the brilliant dazzle of his charming, toothy smile makes her arms drop right off. In fact, the arms of everyone in a ten-mile radius drop off. The other hunter nods.  
  
    “Hey, wow! Thanks!” He reaches for the toothpaste, but gets caught in Dean’s grin, and his arms fall off.  
  
    Dean turns to the camera, nodding with a smile. “Dis-Arm & Hammer, for when you want that disarmingly white smile!”  
  
:::  
  
    Dramatic classical music plays as sparkling diamond jewelry is shown in close-up, interspersed with shots of a curvy silhouette swaying and gyrating.  
  
    “Glamorous.”  
  
    Jewelry, silhouette.  
  
    “Timeless.”  
  
    Jewelry, silhouette.  
  
    “Beautiful.”  
  
    The silhouette is slowly lit to reveal Joe in a leotard and high heels, sultry expression on his face. He vogues for the camera, diamond rings on his fingers.  
  
    “Sensual,” he purrs. “Tell your lover how much they mean to you with only the most flawless of diamonds.”  
  
    Flipping his hair, he holds up a hand and wiggles his ring finger. “If you like it, then you should put a ring on it.”  
  
    Tapdat Jewlers - number one for getting you some.  
  
    [CUT TO BLACK]  
  
:::  
  
    “You know, just once, I’d like to not have to dig up some crazy motherfucker’s bones in the middle of the night in the freezing cold.”  
  
    Sam looked up at Dean, who was taking yet another break, sitting on the edge of the hole they’d dug, drinking a beer and watching him dig. “Seriously, dude?”  
  
    “Keep diggin’, sweetheart.”  
  
    “Yeah, I meant to ask you about that. You called Joe Jonas ‘sweetheart’, too.”  
  
    “Shut up and dig, Sammy.”  
  
    Pausing, Sam leaned on his shovel and grinned up at Dean, who was staring down at his beer as though it held the key to the universe. “You know, the only other people I’ve heard you call ‘sweetheart’ are cute girls.”  
  
    “We’re wasting moonlight, Sam, just pop the guy out of his grave so we can roast him and go.”  
  
    “Avoiding the subject, okay.” Running a hand through his hair, Sam went back to digging.  
  
    It wasn’t as though the idea of Dean being a bit less than straight was alien to him - everything about the guy screamed ‘overcompensating’. He might be free with his favors when it came to ladies, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be just as free with his favors when it came to men. The younger Winchester had wondered sometimes, but figured that even if Dean was bisexual, he’d managed to internalize too many of the more ridiculous social conventions about homosexuality to be comfortable being ‘out’. He didn’t discriminate against others by any stretch of the imagination, though, and it was a step in the right direction, Sam supposed.  
  
    Still, it kind of threw Sam. Dean hadn’t shown real interest in anyone since everything with Lisa had gone down, and then the whole mess with Cas…  
  
    …no, this was new, and it was good, Sam thought. Even if Dean didn’t approach the guy with it, or even acknowledge it, it had to be a step in the right direction, right?  
  
    “He’s very pretty,” Sam needled, unable to resist. The slight choking noise Dean made when he nearly inhaled his drink was gratifying. “Nice eyes. Very cute pout. Great fashion sense-”  
  
    “Shut the fuck up and fucking dig, you asshole.”  
  
    Sam laughed.  
  
:::  
  
    “Why are we here again?”  
  
    Joe pinned Kevin with a derisive stare. “Because I haven’t ridden the Tilt-a-Whirl yet?”  
  
    Kevin rolled his eyes. “Because that’s totally more important then staying far away from the carnival that may or may not be home to a ring of psychopathic traveling performers.”  
  
    “Maybe he’s just hoping to run in to ’Princess Freckles’ again,” Nick mused absently.  
  
    He’d meant it as a joke, honestly, but as soon as Joe’s shoulders twitched and he dropped his bag of popcorn (not on the cob, thankfully - Nick was more than a little disturbed by the idea of popcorn on the cob), Nick’s attention was fully captured.  
  
    No…Joe didn’t…but then again…oh, _wow_.  
  
    Tilting his head to catch Kevin’s eye, Nick raised one eyebrow and slowly nodded towards Joe, who had picked up his popcorn bag and was now picking at the rim of it. To his surprise, Kevin was already looking back at Nick, eyes wide not with surprise, but with concern. So, not only did Kevin already know something, he had, in the past, actively tried to keep it from Nick.  
  
    Had he just stumbled on an Illuminati conspiracy, or was Kevin actually covering for Joe being…well, not-straight?  
  
    As if to confirm his suspicions, Kevin said loudly, “You know what, Joe, I’m not feeling the Tilt-a-Whirl, we’ll wait for you over…uh…away,” grabbed Nick, and hustled his little brother off to the side.  
  
    “Kev-”  
  
    “You can’t say a _word_ to Mom and Dad,” Kevin hissed without preamble.  
  
    Nick blinked. “I…what?”  
  
    “I know what you’re thinking. I could see you working it out in that scary cyborg brain of yours, Nick, I know you were thinking it.”  
  
    “So he’s…?”  
  
    “I don’t know,” the oldest Jonas said with a sigh, running a hand through his hair. “I mean, I haven’t asked or anything, but I’ve always kind of suspected he might be…uh…”  
  
    “Not-straight?”  
  
    “Shht!”  
  
    Nick rolled his eyes. “Dude. It’s not some kind of shameful secret. And what do you mean, don’t tell Mom and Dad? You don’t think they’ll, like, disown him or something, do you? Because they’re not like that, you know they aren’t.”  
  
    “Dude, you can _not_ tell them. They’ll do that creepy parent ‘you-know-we-love-you-but-we’re-concerned-about-you’ thing, and Nick, I don’t even think _Joe_ knows, not really. And if he does, you can’t just out him without his permission, you know?”  
  
    Sighing, Nick rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. But…I mean, we can’t just ignore it, you know? He’s gotta be pretty freaked out, even if he’s not really sure, and he shouldn’t have to be freaking out on his own.”  
      
    Kevin wrung his hands. “I know, I know! But how do you start that conversation? ‘Gee, Joe, tell us about your gay fantasies!’”  
  
    “Uh, no, but how about, ‘Hey, Joe, have you been having not-so-straight thoughts about other guys lately, or are we imagining things’?”  
  
    “Well…okay, when you say it like that it sounds all sensible,” Kevin grumbled.  
  
    “Things usually do when I say them.”  
  
    “Okay. So…after the Tilt-a-Whirl?”  
  
    “Yeah, that sounds-” Nick’s eyes widened, and he drew in a breath to shout, but it was cut off when he stumbled backwards and nearly lost his balance.  
  
    Kevin caught him, all concern. “Nick? Nick, you okay? Is it your insulin? Nick?”  
  
    Slowly, Nick blinked at him, expression oddly blank. Then, turning, he walked away.  
  
    “Nick? Nick!”  
  
:::  
  
    Lou had been having a very tiring day. He’d been a clown for forty-two years, and lately he’d been feeling the strain. Honestly, if one more person screamed at him or called him Pennywise, he was going to just retire. Still he’d put quite a few smiles on quite a few faces, so he supposed it all evened out.  
  
    Now, though, he was seriously rethinking his position on the matter. Stumbling around into another hallway lined with distorted mirrors, Lou glanced over his shoulder for the kid chasing him.  
  
    “Don’t worry,” the kid’s voice said lightly from somewhere nearby. Somewhere far too nearby. “It’ll be quick.”  
  
    He was shoved, face first, into a mirror. As he fell, blood dripping into his eyes, mixing with the greasepaint, he struggled to roll over and gasped.  
  
    “N-no…no!”  
  
    The kid stood over him, shard of the mirror clutched in his hand. He was bleeding, as well, the glass cutting into his palm, but he seemed not to notice. Lifting his arm, the kid smiled sympathetically.  
  
    “It’s for _science_ ,” he explained.  
  
    “Nooooooo!”  
  
:::  
  
    Dean sighed, ripping the rough strip off the matchbook and running the matches across it deftly. “See ya, Doc,” he quipped as he tossed the matches in, watching the remains go up like dry kindling. Which, he supposed, they kind of were by that point.  
  
    As they watched the flames climb, Sam dared another jab. “Kinda romantic, huh? Roaring fire, moonlit night. Great atmosphere for a picnic.” When Dean finally turned to give him a disbelieving look, he smirked. “Bet Joe would love it.”  
  
    He dodged the fist aimed at his head, and Dean sulked. “I hate you.”  
  
    “You love me.”  
  
    “Do not.”  
  
    “Do too. Just not as much as you love Jooooe.”  
  
    “I’m gonna _kill_ you.”  
  
    Sam laughed, taking off running before Dean could make good on his threat.  
  
    A job well done and dirt on his brother. Life just couldn’t get sweeter.  
  
:::  
  
    “Nick!”  
  
    Without thinking, Joe launched himself at his little brother, tackling him away from the hapless old clown he’d been about to murder. Nick bounced off his shoulder and tumbled across the floor, but not before he got a good swipe at Joe’s shoulder with the mirror shard.  
  
    Kevin stumbled forward and kicked all lethal shards well away from Nick, who stood up as though Joe’s linebacker impression hadn’t so much as ruffled him. “Nick,” the oldest brother breathed, “man, what are you doing? What’s gotten into you?”  
  
    Nick laughed, and his brothers watched as a thick, black fluid oozed from his nose.  
  
    Joe took a step back. “Nick?”  
  
    In a flash, Nick was around the corner and out of sight. His brothers only paused for a moment before giving chase, but by that time, Nick had vanished.  
  
    “The _fuck_ was that?”  
  
    “I don’t know.” Glancing back at the clown, Joe hesitated. Then, with a sigh, he reached down and helped the guy up. “I can’t believe I just saved a _clown_.”  
  
    “Oh,” the clown said despondently, his grateful smile melting into a resigned expression, sounding even older than he looked. “you’re one of those. Terribly sorry.”  
  
    “Uh, no,” Joe stuttered, blinking in surprise. “Just…kind of had a bad experience with a party clown as a kid.”  
  
    “Oh?”  
  
    “Yeah, he wouldn’t stop pulling scarves out of my ear.”  
  
    “That’s…I’m sorry?”  
  
    “Don’t ask,” Kevin put in, grabbing Joe by the wrist. “Look, are you okay here? You look a little woozy.”  
  
    “I can get myself to the first aid station, if that’s what you mean,” the clown said, waving them off.  
  
    “Great. Okay. C’mon, Joe - we’ve gotta track Nick down before something else happens.”  
  
    “What,” Joe snarked as they took off running in the direction Nick had gone, “like he tries to poison a mime?”  
  
    “Shut up and run.”  
  
:::  
  
    “Why are we here again?”  
  
    Sam rolled his eyes at his brother, who had been pouting the entire way to the carnival. Really, he supposed he only had himself to blame - he just couldn’t stop needling Dean about Joe. What had started as a harmless joke had turned into a fascinating foray into his brother’s mind, at least where cute guys were concerned. He supposed he was having a bit too much fun at Dean’s expense, but he rarely got such great leverage against him. It was addictive.  
  
    “Well,” he replied perkily, “I thought you might be wanting to see your sweetheart again, so-”  
  
    “Bitch.”  
  
    Sam snorted. “We need to make sure it worked, Dean. You know that.”  
  
    “Yeah, yeah.” As they trudged through the gates, waving to carnies they knew, Dean cleared his throat. “Anyway, that was a lame-ass try, Sammy. That punk’s probably never coming anywhere near this place ag-”  
  
    “Oof!”  
  
    Stumbling back against the dunk tank, Dean, scowled at Joe, who was glowering back from where he’d landed in the dirt. Jesus, the kid was even wearing his aforementioned rhinestone-studded sneakers. What a loser.  
  
    A…bleeding loser.  
  
    “What happened, you piss off the Beiber kid and he glassed you?”  
  
    Joe peered at his bleeding shoulder as though he’d only just noticed it. “Uh…”  
  
    “We don’t have time for this,” Kevin groused, hauling Joe up and trying to shove past Sam. “We’ve got to stop our brother from probably maiming another clown.”  
  
    “Wait, what?” Catching Kevin by the back of his jacket, Sam yanked him back. “Slow down, what about your brother maiming people?”  
  
    “He attacked some poor old clown not five minutes ago and just ran off when we stopped him,” Kevin explained.  
  
    “Poor old creepy clown,” Joe muttered under his breath.  
  
    “And we’ve gotta find him before something happens to him…or somebody else.”  
  
    “Dean,” Sam interjected, eyes going wide. “Burning the bones didn’t stop him.”  
  
    “We’re sure it’s him?”  
  
    “It has to be - there’s no one else!”  
  
    “Then something else must be holding him here. More remains, unfinished business, something like that.”  
  
    “Yeah, but where?”  
  
    “His old digs?”  
  
    “Uh, sorry, can we just pull this conversation back into the space station and reenter Earth’s orbit for a second?” Picking at the tattered sleeve of his tee, Joe winced. “You’re talking about ghosts, aren’t you? What the hell do ghosts have to do with Nick?”  
  
    “How do you know we’re-”  
  
    “Unfinished business? That’s ghost-y talk. I watch Ghostfacers, you know. Burning the bones, that’s how you get rid of them. Now, answer the question - what does this have to do with Nick?”  
  
    Dean grimaced. “You watch that shit? No, never mind. Look, this is going to be hard to believe, but if Kirtland’s still looking for a victim, we don’t have time. Get in the car, and we’ll explain on the way.”  
  
    “We have to-”  
  
    “Find Nick,” Sam interrupted Kevin’s protest, nudging the pop stars toward the car. “We know. We want to find him, too, and help him before someone gets hurt. Just get in, and we’ll explain.”  
  
:::  
  
    “You’re out of your minds.”  
  
    “Joe-”  
  
    “No. No. Sam, is it?” When the taller Winchester nodded, Joe continued. “Look, there’s no such thing as ghosts, okay? Shows like Ghostfacers and all? They’re all made-y-up-y. Not true. None of them. And even if they were, how the hell would a ghost possess someone? That’s, like…Satanic stuff, isn’t it? And even if ghosts were real and they did possess people, why Nick? And why kill a clown? I mean,” he amended with a snort, “besides the obvious reasons.”  
  
    “Listen, smartass,” Dean broke in, not taking his eyes off the road, “there are ghosts, they can possess people, and hey, guess what? If they’re murderers in real life, you can bet they’ll be murderers in the afterlife, okay? The kind of crazy-ass shit that goes on to turn people into vengeful spirits? The frustration of not being able to move on? Even nice ghosts can turn nasty. Haven’t you ever seen _Poltergeist_?”  
  
    “Let me guess,” Kevin queried, looking up from where he was taping gauze over the shallow cut on Joe’s shoulder, “based on a true story?”  
  
    “Based on a lot of true stories,” Sam admitted. “There’s a reason so many people believe in ghosts, or have seen them, and it’s not an issue of mass hysteria or superstition. Look, we know how crazy it sounds, okay? We deal with crazy every day of our lives. But we’ve been hunting these things since we were little. Believe me, they’re real.”  
  
    “Why?”  
  
    The Winchesters both blinked at Joe in the rearview mirror. “Huh?”  
  
    Flipping his hair out of his eyes, Joe glanced between them. “Why have you been hunting them? What the heck kind of childhood it that?”  
  
    “The necessary kind,” Dean snapped.  
  
    Smiling to take some of the sting out of his brother’s words, Sam elaborated. “Our mother died when we were really little - a demon killed her. Our dad…he kind of developed this obsession with finding that demon and killing it, and we got dragged into it. He taught us the job to keep us safe, you know?”  
  
    “Did he kill it?” Joe asked softly, eyes on Dean’s stony expression in the mirror.  
  
    “No,” the older Winchester replied shortly. “I did.”  
  
    “So, what, ghosts you don’t buy, but demons you believe in?”  
  
    Joe and Kevin shared a look. “We were raised in a very Christian family,” Kevin explained. “Demons are easy.”  
  
    “Ah, here we are,” Dean interrupted, cutting the headlights as he pulled up to a winding dirt path that lead into a thick, misty wooded area.  
  
    “Oh, yeah, that’s not creepy and forboding at all,” Joe remarked.  
  
    [CUT TO BLACK]  
  
:::  
  
    “I am a demon.”  
  
    Kevin strolls out of a burning nursery.  
  
    “I’m power-mad and bent on serving my Lord Lucifer by turning your baby into a blood-sucking fiend, and, whoops, you just walked in on it.”  
  
    A woman screams as she’s incinerated.  
  
    “Now, if you’d had an Allchester Demon Protection package, this might not have happened.”  
  
    He pulls out a skewer and begins to roast marshmallows while everyone dies.  
  
    Allchester. You’re in experienced hunter hands.  
  
:::  
  
    Sam walks into his motel room, covered in grime. “My skin takes a beating on the job - grave dirt, blood, guts, you name it. It really does a number on my pores. Luckily, I know just the thing!”  
  
    He winks. Suddenly, he’s naked and dripping wet in his shower, looking like some kind of Tarzan/Hercules hybrid, the stupid, built bastard. He grabs a bottle from the shelf, careful to hold it so that the Fanservice Bodywash logo is showing.  
  
    “Oooh,” he moans as he suds up. “Oooohhhh, yes, yes, yes!”  
  
    Throwing his head back, he nearly disappears in a flood of bubbles.  
  
    Outside the bathroom, Dean is staring at the bathroom door in horror. Moans and cries of ecstasy emanate from within, and steam and suds begin to seep out from under the door.  
  
    Back in the bathroom, Sam is magically dry and running his hands over his bare chest. “Ooooh, yes! Fanservice Bodywash! Indulge your pervy fan girl fantasies!”  
  
:::  
  
    Ghost! Ghostfacers! We face the ghosts when others will not!  
  
    Shaky night vision footage shows the Ghostfacers team tripping over each other to run away from an owl.  
  
    We’re ghost! Ghostfacers!  
  
    “Hi, I’m Ed.”  
  
    “And I’m Harry.”  
  
    The two lounge in their high-backed chairs, peering at the camera solemnly.  
  
    “And if you’re thinking Ghostfacers is about to explode back onto television screens all across America this fall-”  
  
    “-you’d be right!”  
  
    They point at the screen, trying their best to appear stern and commanding and having to settle for vaguely-constipated.  
  
    “So tune in-”  
  
    “-freak out-”  
  
    “-and remember to follow us on Twitter,” they finish in unison.  
  
    Ghost!  
  
    Ghostfaaaceeerrrs!  
  
:::      
  
    The news anchor shuffles her papers super-professionally and gazes at the camera imploringly. “Fangirl riots at hundreds of Fanservice Bath Products kiosks in malls across the US have resulted in countless injuries and over a million dollars in damage.“  
  
    A picture of Sam in only a skimpy motel bath towel appears beside her head.  
  
    “Could this have been prevented?” She glances at the picture. “Ah, no. Probably not.” She presses a hand to her heaving bosom. “M-more at 11.”  
  
    [CUT TO BLACK]  
  
:::  
  
    Trudging down the dirt road, placed firmly between Dean and Sam, Kevin peered into the oddly-fog-filled forest. “So, this guy, the ghost…what’s his deal?”  
  
    “Well, Philip Kirtland was a psychotherapist back in the eighties. As far as we can tell from our research, he specialized in behavioral neuroscience - how the physical brain affects psychology. He didn’t have any kind of degree beyond a bachelors, and he wasn’t a very good therapist, even without the murders,” Sam explained, a bit mesmerized by the way the flashlight beam glinted off of Joe’s footwear. Who wore rhinestone sneakers, anyway? “He, uh, kind of got tired of being laughed at, I guess, because he went on a murder spree among his patients. When they searched his place and found the bodies, there was a specific bit missing: the amygdalae. The doc babbled a lot at his trial about curing people of social anxiety and phobias and how he needed people’s brains for science. Get this - nobody ever found the bits he took out.”  
  
    “Gives the term ‘psychotherapist’ a fun new meaning,” Joe snarked, stumbling over a protruding root. Dean automatically reached back to steady him, and Kevin and Sam rolled their eyes in tandem when the pair jerked apart at the same time, the darkness doing nothing to hide Joe’s flushed cheeks.  
  
    Kevin glanced at Sam, who grinned back, mouthing, ‘how adorable’.  
  
    “Yeah, well, the doc’s taken up his scalpel again - the last three murders? Their amygdalaes-”  
  
    “Amygdalae is the plural form,” Sam broke in. “The singular is ’amygdala’. It’s a group of-”  
  
    “I really don’t care. Those bits were missing,” Dean continued over Joe’s snickers. “Only there are no openings or incisions or breakages in the skulls.”  
  
    “Which was our first clue that it wasn’t just a string of normal murders.”  
  
    “This really is your life, isn’t it?” Kevin turned to look at Sam again. “You guys seriously have everyday conversations that include the phrase ‘normal murders’ and have a system for digging up and burning corpses.”  
  
    “Yep.”  
  
    “I am so glad we’re just an internationally famous band,” the oldest Jonas sighed thankfully.  
  
:::  
  
    Joe clicked his flashlight on and off in Dean’s face. “You do realize that ‘let’s split up, gang’ is the phrase that always gets the Scooby Gang in so much trouble, right?”  
  
    “Gets us in trouble, too,” Dean admitted, “but we don’t have time to clump together, okay? And if you guys are dead-set on following us, we need to make sure neither of you wanders off or gets separated. That’s easier to do one-on-one.”  
  
    “Can you not say things like ‘dead-set’?”  
  
    “Can you not be a whiny brat for five minutes?”  
  
    Kevin raised an eyebrow. “Are we sure we should let those two wander off alone?”  
  
    “Worst case scenario, Dean gets too distracted by Joe’s butt to focus on the case and we all die horribly.”  
  
    “Ew.” Kevin shook his head at Sam. “Why would you say something like that to me? I don’t want to ever think about anyone checking out my little brother’s butt.”  
  
    Sam laughed. “If it helps,” he offered as they watched the bickering pair begin their inspection of the outside of the house, “Dean’s stuck on the idea of being a macho man, so he’ll probably be really subtle about it.”  
  
    Stepping carefully into the dilapidated sitting room, Kevin huffed a shaky laugh. “Oh, yeah. That totally helps.”  
  
:::  
  
    “So.”  
  
    Dean glanced at Joe momentarily before returning to his inspection of the ground. “So?”  
  
    “You and Sam are pretty close.”  
  
    “Well…we’re about it, you know. All we’ve got and all that.”  
  
    “Hmm. And he’s the younger brother?”  
  
    “Mmhmm.”  
  
    “Really? Because, I mean, aside from making you look like a hobbit, he’s got decades worth of maturity on you.”  
  
    Swinging around, Dean deliberately shined his flashlight in Joe’s eyes. “How about we just shut up unless one of us is about to get hacked to bits by Casper the Freudian Ghost, okay?”  
  
:::  
  
    “Bet they’re getting along great,” Kevin muttered, opening the kitchen cabinets. “Creamed corn. Ugh. Dude was seriously crazy.”  
  
    Sam snorted. As he peered into the pantry, he paused. “You and your brothers - you get along okay?”  
  
    “Sure, as well as we can living in each others’ back pockets all day for months on end.”  
  
    “Hah. I know how that is.”  
  
    “Yeah, but it’s never anything terrible, you know? Stupid little things.”  
  
    “When it is something big, is it because you’re related to a perpetual three-year-old and there’s nothing you can do about it?”  
  
    Kevin grinned. “Pretty much. What, you’re saying Dean’s a little immature?”  
  
    “Oh, no,” Sam joked, “he’s absolutely mature and not at all childish.”  
  
:::  
  
    “Oh my god!”  
  
    Joe jumped, dropping his flashlight, heart pounding wildly. “What? What?!”  
  
    Bursting into quiet snickers, Dean could only shake his head.  
  
    “Oh, you’re such a…such a…”  
  
    “What, pretty little pop star can’t think of a word that won’t get his mouth washed out?”  
  
    Joe picked up his flashlight and contemplated throwing it at Dean. Stupid athletic bastard would probably just dodge it, and he’d make Joe fetch it.  
  
    Stupid, arrogant, macho, handsome, broad-shouldered, courageous, fascinating, addictive bastard.  
  
    Dean peered back over his shoulder as Joe mumbled to himself. That trick had been a little mean, he conceded. It wasn’t as though Joe was used to hunting or anything, either. Honestly, Dean had been expecting a scream, maybe running, possibly crying. It was probably the shock, the hunter decided. Once it all sank in, probably hours after the fact, the kid would be a gibbering mess.  
  
    Dean peeked back at him again, pressing his lips together as Joe brushed his curly mess of hair out of his eyes. He’d called him pretty earlier, and he guessed it was true. For a guy, anyway. It was weird, because he didn’t look girl-pretty. Just…pretty. Guy-pretty, Dean amended. It was something a nameless chick in a nameless town had called Dean once. Guy-pretty.  
  
    He was more man-pretty, he corrected himself. Because he was a man, and he’d never grow his hair all floppy or wear sparkly shoes to a carnival or look quite so comfortable surrounded by eerie shadows with billows of dramatic mist at his feet.  
  
    Dean coughed lightly, jerking his mind back to the present issue.  
  
    “Move it, Twinkle-Toes,” he barked.  
  
:::  
  
    “Hey, Kevin, come over here for a second.” Quickly handing the younger man his flashlight, Sam bent down and tapped at the pantry wall. Then, carefully, he ran his fingers along it. “There’s an opening here.”  
  
    “Gotta be a latch then, right?”  
  
    “Yep. And if I can find it, I bet-” Pressing against one corner of the hidden door, Sam heard a slight click, and the door inched aside. Slipping his fingers through and praying nothing gnawed them off, he shoved it all the way open. “This has been opened recently.”  
  
    “Nick?”  
  
    Nodding, Sam put a finger to his lips and, taking back his flashlight, poked his head inside.  
  
:::  
  
    “Hey, check that out.” Pointing with his flashlight, Joe waved Dean over. “Is that a vent?  
  
    Dean peered at the grate. “Yeah, looks like.”  
  
    “In the basement?”  
  
    Looking over at Joe, Dean grinned. “This house doesn’t have a basement.”  
  
:::  
  
    “Hey, Dean. We’ve found a way inside.”  
  
    There was an irritated huff, and Sam could hear Joe complaining about losing rhinestones in the background. “Yeah, so did we. There’s a ventilation shaft that drops down past the foundation.”  
  
    “Really? Sure you don’t want to come try out the nice, spacious elevator shaft Kevin and I found?” Sam cast a smirk at Kevin, who was peering down the gloomy shaft with a terrified expression.  
  
    “Even if I wanted to, I don’t know if I could back out of this thing.”  
  
    “Meet you there, then.” Snapping his phone shut, Sam gestured down into the pit. “Wanna do the honors?”  
  
:::  
  
    “These shoes weren’t cheap, you know. I had to get them custom-made.”  
  
    “Yeah, yeah.”  
  
    “Antonio worked really hard on these. These are my favorite shoes. God, could this get any worse?”  
  
    “Are you always such a bitch?”  
  
    Joe stopped, dropping his head to peer at Dean incredulously through his legs. “ _I’m_ a bitch? Are you out of your mind? I’m a mildly-successful musician in the prime of his life on the edge of potential greatness and a hopefully long life that will, at some point, include a wife and kids and dogs and a nice house in LA. I have a lot going for me. I have enough money and pull to hire someone whose job it would be to follow me around playing a theme song every time I walked into the room. I could be back in my apartment sipping Italian soda and watching Casablanca in silk boxers - _real_ silk boxers, mind you. Instead, I am halfway into a cursed laboratory that may or may not house the sadistic spirit of a dead mad scientist via an air duct that smells like rotting corpses with a surly psycho who spends his life driving around the country throwing himself at demons, and who clearly thinks he’s hotter than he really is. You, dude, do not get to start shit with me if I want to complain a little.”  
  
    Dean stared at the jean-clad bottom in front of his face and wondered when his life had gone topsy-turvy, because suddenly he really wanted to kiss the stupid kid. “Just move,” he growled instead, hoping the gloom and the fact that Joe was looking at him upside-down would conceal any smooshy feelings that might be showing on his face.  
  
    They clambered on a bit in silence before Joe muttered, “Your face is a bitch.”  
  
    Gamely resisting the urge to strangle the guy (which would have been hard in their tight quarters and would definitely have slowed them down a bit), Dean sighed.  
  
    This job could not end fast enough.  
  
:::  
  
    “Hey.” Sam nodded to Dean, leaning against the door to the disused elevator, a shaky Kevin slumped at his side.  
  
    Dean nodded back as Joe dangled from the vent, waiting for the kid to drop so he could wriggle free. “Hey. Find the place okay?”  
  
    “Oh, yeah. Total breeze.”  
  
    As the group congregated in the darkened concrete corridor, Sam noted (with perhaps more glee than strictly necessary) that Dean was hovering over Joe a bit. Kevin, too, went straight to his brother’s side, patting him own and brushing cobwebs out of his hair. When the middle Jonas brother turned his dark, worried eyes on Sam, the hunter found himself wanting to fret over him, as well.  
  
    Shaking himself, Sam turned to glance down the corridor. There were doors leading off to either side all along the hallway. “Okay, well, we’d best start searching for Nick.”  
  
    “And a clue as to what’s keeping Dr. Horrible around. But first…”  
  
    Joe and Kevin protested being taught to use the shotguns at first, but relaxed when Sam explained that they fired rounds of rock salt - they would hurt the living a bit, but only really harmed spirits. Dean handed them each a cylindrical carton of salt.  
  
    “Salt repels spirits - hence the rock salt in the guns. You make a line of salt around yourself, a spirit can’t cross it, okay? If you lose the gun and the salt, find pure iron - it’ll hold the thing off until someone else can get to you. Just in case.”  
  
    “Oh, that sounds optimistic,” Kevin drawled, tucking the salt under one arm and hefting his shotgun.  
  
    They crept down the hall, opening doors and peering into every corner. There were operating tables, chairs with straps, instruments lined up neatly on trays. Except for the layer of dust and cobweb over everything, it was neat and clean.  
  
    Joe peered around an already-open doorway, gnawing at his lip. He clutched his shotgun tightly, inching inward and directing the beam of light into each corner until it illuminated a figure hunched up against the far wall.  
  
    “Uh…guys?”  
  
    The figure was suddenly in front of him, and all he could see was blazing red eyes set deep in a bruised and broken face. He heard the door slam behind him, his brother and the Winchesters cursing and pounding at the barrier as the spirit stared at him.  
  
    It felt as though his heart was climbing into his throat, and Joe swallowed, bringing the shotgun up with shaking hands. “Wh-where’s my brother?”  
  
    The ghost sneered.  
  
    Swallowing again, Joe took a deep breath. “Where. Is. Nick?”  
  
    “What I’m trying to accomplish here, you see, is very vital to the progression of society. Don’t you understand?”  
  
    “I want my brother,” Joe insisted, and the ghost’s eyes seemed to focus.  
  
    “Brother…the boy…”  
  
    “Nick. Yes. Where is he?”  
  
    “Oh, I’m keeping him. He’s a very good test subject. You see, in death, I’ve discovered that what I was seeking in life was petty and small.”  
  
    “Give me back my brother, you crazy bastard.”  
  
    "Crazy?” The ghost chuckled, flickering like a loose light bulb. “Don’t you understand? I am powerful now. Where once I sought to control the human mind from the outside, I can now control it from the inside. I am a god.”  
  
    “You’re a few guests short of an episode of Hollywood Squares, and I want my brother back. Now.”  
  
    “You stupid mortal! I am in control here! I am God! I am destruction! I am chaos and mayhem!"  
  
    “Are you a hot babe out jogging?”  
  
    The spirit stared at Joe, momentarily bewildered, and the young man took the opportunity to squeeze the shotgun trigger. The spirit dispersed in a gritty-looking cloud, just as Dean had said it would. Unfortunately, Joe was holding the stock of the gun under his arm, and the recoil had caused the barrel to spring upward and hit him in the face.  
  
    “Mother Hubbard,” he groused as Dean barreled through the door shoulder-first.  
  
    The hunter surveyed the scene for a moment. When Joe peeked at him over the hand pinching his nose, he favored the younger man with a shit-eating grin. “Forgot to cradle it right, didn’t ya?”  
  
    “Shut up.”  
  
:::  
  
    “So, you saw Kirtland?”  
  
    “Him, or some guy who lost out on the role as that dude from the Allstate commercials and is super-pissed about it.”  
  
    “What?”  
  
    Joe shook his head at Sam’s confusion. “Nothing. Look, he called Nick a test subject, but I don’t think he meant his usual lobotomy stuff - he was talking about controlling minds from the inside.”  
  
    “Yeah, that’s pretty much what possession is.” Finishing taping up Joe’s nose, Sam stepped back. “Okay, let’s try it in pairs again, okay? No one goes into a room alone anymore.”  
  
    The group nodded, Dean and Kevin splitting off and heading further up to the end of the hallway while Sam and Joe continued from where they’d stopped.  
  
:::  
  
    “So. You’ve got a thing for my brother.”  
  
    Dean groaned, glancing back at Kevin with a mighty scowl. “Can we not?”  
  
    “Hey, it’s okay. It’s not like he doesn’t have a thing for you, too.”  
  
    “No, seriously. Let’s not.”  
  
    Kevin grinned, following Dean around a corner and into what had once been an office. “I mean, I’ve never seen him flirt with someone so much before. Clearly, he wants the D.”  
  
    “You really want to have a discussion about the possibility of me having gay sex with your brother?”  
  
    “Uh, no. Really, really no.”  
  
    “Good.”  
  
    Watching Dean shuffle through files, Kevin nonchalantly rifled through a stack of papers on the desk. “But you can’t deny that there is a possibili-”  
  
    “Yes. Yes, I can. Because there isn’t. Now shut up.”  
  
    Kevin’s grin only grew, but it was wiped away in an instant by an ominous slam and Sam’s panicked shouts.  
  
:::  
  
    Joe groaned, letting the container of salt drop into his hand. Of course, he’d been stupid and dropped the gun. He’d been somewhat surprised, though. Being yanked around by your ghost-possessed little brother would do that to a guy.  
  
    Not-Nick lunged at him, grasping at his throat and shoving him to the floor. “I can make him do anything,” the Kirtland said with Nick’s mouth. “I can make him kill his own brother.”  
  
    Scrabbling at the salt, Joe poured a bit into his palm. With supreme effort , he grasped Nick by the hair and pulled until the smaller man’s grip loosened. Flipping them over, he wriggled up to straddle Nick’s chest, pinning his arms down with his knees, and pried Nick’s mouth open. He poured in the salt, covering his brother’s mouth as he gagged.  
  
    An odd rush of nearly-tangible something burst past Joe’s face, ruffling his hair, and in an instant, Nick stopped struggling. Joe lunged for the salt again, popping open the spout and pouring it in a circle around Nick’s unconscious form. He scrunched up as small as he could manage beside his brother, just as Kirtland’s spirit flickered into view outside the salt circle.  
  
    It made for the pair, but stopped, face twisted in fury when it realized it could go no further.  
  
    “Guys,” Joe shouted, voice tight with terror, “I really hope you have a plan here!”  
  
    [CUT TO BLACK]  
  
:::  
  
    When it comes to great food at great prices, nobody beats Biggerson’s!  
  
    Happy families mill about, chatting and laughing and seeming way too happy for people having a normal family dinner. It’s almost obscene.  
  
    There’s a closeup of a giant sandwich, then a shot of a giant guy eating said giant sandwich.  
  
    It’s the new, improved Turducken Supreme Sandwich! Back by popular demand and only $9.95!  
  
    So come on down to Biggerson’s for good food, good fun, and low prices!  
  
:::  
  
    “I’m an angel of the lord.”  
  
    Striding through the shed, Kevin makes lights explode and windows shatter.  
  
    “I’ve come to inform you of your place in the Ineffable Plan. Unfortunately, it probably means you’ll die horribly. Most things these days mean you’ll die horribly.”  
  
    The eyes of unfortunate onlookers burn out of their heads as Kevin continues to wander through.  
  
    “You should think about getting the Allchester Rebellion Against Your Prophesized Destiny Forgiveness plan, which will protect your rates from being raised should you decide to exercise free will and turn away from God.”  
  
    A man screams as his face bursts into flames.  
  
    “Whoops. Sorry, Ted.”  
  
    Allchester: you’re in experienced hunter hands.  
  
:::  
  
    The Winchesters and the Jonas Brothers gather around for a moonlit bonfire picnic in the local graveyard. They’re roasting weenies, making S’mores, and generally frolicking like twats.  
  
    Spice up any meal with a Dash O’ Love!  
  
    Sam pulls out a carton of salt and pours a generous amount onto his hot dog before taking a bite with a cheesy grin.  
  
    Give your life flavor with a Dash O’ Love!  
  
    Joe takes the salt from Sam and pours a heap onto his S’more before devouring it, giving a thumbs up.  
  
    Dinner’s not complete with a Dash O’ Love!  
  
    Nick takes the salt, about to copy Joe, but then remembers that he’s already had s’mores, and he’s not an irresponsible diabetic. Tossing the S’more into the flaming coffin, he opens his mouth and pours the salt straight in, smiling grittily.  
  
    Suddenly, a ghost appears! Luckily, they have Dash O’ Love salt. Dean tosses a handful at the spirit, it vanishes with a scream.  
  
    Make a dish just right with a Dash O’ Love!  
  
    Everyone laughs for seemingly no reason as the Dash O’ Love logo is splayed across the scene.  
  
    Dash O’ Love!  
  
    [CUT TO BLACK]  
  
:::  
  
    Papers flew about as the trio tore through the office.  
  
    “Come on, there’s gotta be a clue, something.” Dean whirled to a stop, running both hands through his hair. “Where the hell is your weakness?”  
  
    Sam was ripping the drawers out of the desk, dumping everything they contained on top and rifling through the pile. “There’s nothing here, Dean.” He shoved the pile onto the floor in frustration. “There’s just nothing!”  
  
    “Uh…not quite nothing,” Kevin shouted from where he was peering behind a painting that swung away from the wall on a hinge.  
  
    “A safe?” Hurrying over, Sam pressed close to it and spun the dial.  
  
:::  
  
    “You know, I got a lot of your kind in my office. Homosexuals, I mean.”  
  
    Joe rubbed his temples, rolling his eyes. “I’m not gay.”  
  
    “Pathetic bunch, you know. Always afraid. Afraid of being discovered, afraid of being alone forever, afraid of what they wanted.” The ghost paced around the circle, red eyes peering unblinkingly at Joe. “Is that what you’re so afraid of? Joe, was it?”  
  
    “You know, I think I actually prefer you trying to murder me brutally to you trying to analyze me.”  
  
    “Or is it another fear? Fear of abandonment - of losing your family’s love and companionship? That was a common one.”  
  
    Joe flinched, grasping at the salt container and preparing to fling whatever was left at Kirtland.  
  
    “It’s such a stupid, petty thing, fear. It only ever holds you back,” the spirit hissed, suddenly on the other side of the room. “It makes you less than you could be, makes you avoid taking risks that could end in happiness. Foolish.”  
  
    Rolling his eyes again, Joe wished he could cover his eyes and ears and ignore the dead therapist until it went away. He knew better than to take his eyes off of it for a second, but it was oh, so tempting. Even if it did kind of have a point, a little voice said mockingly.  
  
    “What are you so afraid of, Joe?”  
  
    “Right now? Being charged an outrageous amount for this session,” he snarked, even as he asked himself the same question.  
  
:::  
  
    The trio blinked. Kevin opened his mouth, then shut it again. Dean shuddered.  
  
    “Are those…are those jars of…toenails?” Sam asked.  
  
    “I think so.”  
  
    “That is so gross,” Kevin groaned, nevertheless reaching in quickly and grabbing a jar in each hand. “These count as remains, I’m guessing.”  
  
    “Yep. Over on the desk,” Dean ordered.  
  
:::  
  
    “I could have been great. I could have been the most respected, exalted figure in modern psychology,” Kirtland roared. “If I hadn’t been so afraid to try, I could have succeeded!”  
  
    “Yeah, that’s great,” Joe sighed. “I’m really sorry for your loss, okay? But you have _got_ to move on.”  
  
    Kirtland whirled on Joe, opening his mouth to answer, and burst into flames, vanishing forever.  
  
    As the door creaked open, Joe let himself fall back onto the floor and covered his face with his hands. “Oh, thank _God_. I thought he‘d never shut up.”  
  
:::  
  
    As they huddled outside the Kirtland house, the small group of dusty, tired men turned their faces to the faint light of dawn.  
  
    “Well, I don’t know about you, but I could use a shower right about now,” Sam moaned, rubbing at his nose and grimacing.  
  
    “No kidding.” Kevin shuddered, never taking his hand off of his still-unconscious baby brother’s arm. “I’ll never look at toenails the same way again.”  
  
    Joe looked up from checking that Nick‘s OmniPod was still stuck on. “Do I even want to know what that means?”  
  
    “No,” the other three chimed in.  
  
    “Look,” Dean said awkwardly, “uh, the authorities will be showing up any time now, and…well, we’re not too popular with them at the moment.”  
  
    “Or ever,” Sam added.  
  
    “So…yeah, we’d better go. You guys gonna be okay?”  
  
    Joe smiled. “Is the homicidal head shrinker really gone?”  
  
    “Yeah.”  
  
    “Then yeah. We’ll be good.”  
  
    Kevin and Sam rolled their eyes at each other as Dean and Joe stared at each other for a moment.  
  
    “Okay, then,” Sam cut in when the silence became too awkward. “We should get going.”  
  
    “You should come back and visit,” Kevin suggested as Nick stirred a bit. “You know, when it’s not a matter of life and death and life after death.”  
  
    “Ah, we don’t really do social calls,” Dean said with a shrug and carefully averted eyes. “But here.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out a card. It was blank except for a pair of phone numbers. “Those are our cells. If anything weird crops up, give us a call, okay?”  
  
    As the Winchesters wandered back to their car, disappearing into the slowly-dissipating fog, Nick groaned, eyes opening slightly.  
  
    “Hey, there, Nicky. How are you feeling?”  
  
    “Kev?” Struggling to sit up, Nick looked around. “Joe? What happened? Where am I?”  
  
    “Don’t worry about it, man. Everything’s fine.”  
  
    Nick nodded blearily, reaching up to pinch his nose. “God, my head’s killing me.”  
  
    “What’s the last thing you remember?”  
  
    Pausing, Nick’s eyes flitted back and forth as he considered the question. “Um…Joe being suddenly kind of gay.”  
  
    As Kevin burst out laughing, Joe buried his face in his hands. He was never, ever going to live this down.  
  
    Then again, he thought as he gave in and started chuckling, why should he have to?  
  
:::  
  
    “So.”  
  
    “Oh, God, Sammy, I swear, if you say one more word about Joe, I’m gonna kick your ass.”  
  
    Sam snickered. “Okay, man. Just, you know…you could try not to protest so much. It just makes it seem more plausible.”  
  
    “Well, it isn’t, okay? It isn’t. He’s already a hundred miles behind us, and I’m ready to just bleach my brain of all things Jonas for the rest of eternity, okay? So just shut up about it.”  
  
    Sam opened his mouth to jab at this new sore spot a bit more when his cell rang. He took one look at the caller ID and snorted. “Hello? Yeah, sure, hang on.” Holding the phone out to Dean, he smiled angelically. “It’s for you, Princess Freckles.”  
  
    Trepidation filling his stomach, Dean took the phone and pressed it to his ear, the hand on the steering wheel clenching tightly.  
  
    “I’m lyin’ alone with my head on the phone,” Joe sang passionately, “thinkin’ of you till it hurts!  
  
    “What th-…are you kidding me? Air Supply?”  
  
    “I know you hurt too, but what else can we do? Tormented and torn apart!”  
  
    “You don’t even know about torment. Listening to you sing - that’s torment.”  
  
    “I wish I could carry your smile in my heart for times when my life seems so low!”  
  
    “I could not be tormented by a more irritating asshole if I’d just been given an industrial enema.”  
  
    “I want you to come back and carry me home, away from these long, lonely nights! I’m reaching for you, are you feeling it, too? Does the feeling seem oh, so riiiight?”  
  
    “I’m hanging up on you, I swear to God.”  
  
    “I’m all out of love,” Joe warbled, only just drowning out the hysterical laughter of his douchebag brothers in the background, and Dean squeezed his eyes shut and let his head fall back against the seat. “I’m so lost without you!”  
  
    “I hate you.”  
  
    “It can’t be too late to say I was soooo wrong!”  
  
    “That’s not even how it goes, you idiot.”  
  
    “Ooh, what are you thinkin’ of?”  
  
    “Homicide.”  
  
    “Aw, you love me and you know it,” Joe cooed.  
  
    “Fuck off,” Dean groaned, flipping his phone shut. He could see Sam side-eyeing him mightily with a knowing smirk, but the last thing he wanted to have was a discussion about Joe Jonas. Leaning forward, he jabbed at the radio defiantly.  
  
    ~I’m lying alone with my head on the phone, thinking of you till it hurts~  
  
    Sam fairly howled, going so far as to pound his fist against the dashboard, and no matter how much Dean threatened to pull over and kick him out, he wouldn’t stop. He laughed all the way to Tucumcari. Dean had to admit, it was good to hear.  
  
    Not that it made the little soft spot in his heart reserved for a whiny little pop star with sparkly shoes and a Tilt-a-Whirl fetish grow or anything. Because, you know, that would be dumb.  
  
    So, so dumb.  
  
    Dean sighed.  
  
    He was so, _so_ dumb.  
  
END…or is it?  
  



End file.
